The Edmonton Oilers 2013 season did not fall apart during a nine-game road trip. The nine-game road trip was simply the point in the season when a summer of inept management finally caught up to the team.

Forwards

Some of the pain here was an unavoidable part of rebuilding through the draft. Decisions to employ Ryan Nugent-Hopkins as the team’s top-line forward (an often overlooked weakness entering the season) and to try Nail Yakupov as the second line’s left wing were understandable, perhaps even unavoidable. Nugent-Hopkins’ inexperience means that he would be better suited to a lesser role on a contending team, but he is the best option at the Oilers’ disposal for a top-line job. Yakupov’s left-handed shot, a desire to get him on to a skill line, and the team’s weakness at left wing after Taylor Hall also made a cameo in that position an understandable gamble (particularly given Yakupov’s success in the role in Russia). It is a gamble that has not worked out so far, as the positional change may well have increased the difficulty of Yakupov’s transition to NHL play.

Other errors were unforced. The decisions to re-sign Lennart Petrell and Darcy Hordichuk added a pair of 5-on-5 liabilities to a bottom-six group that didn’t need more players incapable of moving the puck in the right direction. The decision not to bring in a second-line left wing to add a capable veteran and force a guy like Ryan Smyth, Magnus Paajarvi or Teemu Hartikainen into a third line role opposite Yakupov on the other wing was another error.

While the root of these problems goes back to the summer, it seems likely the Oilers aren’t even aware of some of them. The decision to spend a fourth-round pick on Mike Brown – fine in his role, but terrible at adding 5-on-5 offence (the Oilers biggest weakness) when plausible options like Simon Gagne (dealt to Philadelphia for a fourth-round pick) or Dustin Penner (in the doghouse and rumoured to be cheap) was understandable but wrong-headed. Brown scores high in areas where Penner has been long-criticized, but in just 15 games in a bad season Penner is within a point of matching Brown’s career-best offensive production. Intangibles do matter – but tangibles matter too, and the fact is that the Oilers went shopping for a fourth-line guy who could punch people even as their team struggled to generate any kind of offence. That is not a criticism of Brown, who I actually like; it is a criticism of a management team that was picking out drapes while the house burned down.

Defence

Justin Schultz personifies both the best and worst of the Oilers’ blue line. On the positive side, he’s a sublimely skilled offensive defenceman, a great fit for the team long-term and was a massive windfall for the Oilers when he chose Edmonton in the summer. On the negative side, the fact that Justin Schultz, rookie pro, is the Oilers’ number one defenceman says everything about the state of the blue line.

It was obvious in the summer that the only prudent course of action was to add another defender – and despite the fact that the best options were signed early, players like Michal Rozsival stayed unsigned until September while Chris Campoli eventually had to relocate to Europe. Ideally, the Oilers would have competed for one of the better options out there; instead they failed even to make a basic insurance signing.

They’re paying for it now. Ryan Whitney’s unsurprising struggles, the inability of Justin Schultz and veteran second-pairing guy Nick Schultz to handle the opposition’s best, along with the ups and downs of a still-young Petry/Smid tandem have been the deserved result of an unwillingness to address a problem visible in the summer months.

The reader may notice an abundance of links in the piece above; the reason for that is to establish that this isn’t simply looking in hindsight and spotting things that seem obvious now. Many of the mistakes made by the Oilers management group are mistakes that should have been evident long before now, mistakes that could have been avoided with a little foresight and a little action back in June, July and August. The Oilers management group deserves a team with the record this one has.

They also deserve to pay the price of failure, a price they haven’t hesitated to visit upon players, coaches, and lower levels of management within the organization: dismissal.

Update: To be clear, not all of the Oilers' problems were forseeable. For example, the run of injuries at centre, and the shooting percentage struggles of the top line have hurt the team badly, and neither was a predictable problem. With teams as close as they are, my personal belief is that it takes some things going wrong to end up at the bottom of the pile, and that's happened in Edmonton. But those unforseen problems would have had less impact if visible problems had been addressed earlier. JW.

Recently by Jonathan Willis

Jonathan Willis is a freelance writer.
He currently works for Oilers Nation, Sportsnet, the Edmonton Journal and Bleacher Report.
He's co-written three books and worked for myriad websites, including Grantland, ESPN, The Score, and Hockey Prospectus. He was previously the founder and managing editor of Copper & Blue.

Jonathan, for the most part a great read, the link to your article on buying out Khabby and replacing him with Jan Denis would not have worked out.It seems the jump from the AHL to the NHL for a veteran goaltender is often too much, the shots are just that much better.I don't recall who else was available this summer for goaltenders but if Khabby would have not got hurt he would have been ok as a back-up playing 10 games or so, he has been an excellent team mate and mentor and has played well this year but he is physically wore out.I don't think Dubnyk has the mental toughness to be a #1 and this was something the Oilers had to find out this year.

I think I have this figured out.
Who do we always see up on stage at the draft helping with the first overall pick? Katz's son!!
Katz doesn't do anything about this mess because he lives vicariously through his kid who he parades out onto the stage at every draft. Imagine that kid going to university classes year after year telling all his buddies he just came back from another NHL draft and met another first pick. How much fun is that!! No need to change a thing, what a great dad.

I think I have this figured out.
Who do we always see up on stage at the draft helping with the first overall pick? Katz's son!!
Katz doesn't do anything about this mess because he lives vicariously through his kid who he parades out onto the stage at every draft. Imagine that kid going to university classes year after year telling all his buddies he just came back from another NHL draft and met another first pick. How much fun is that!! No need to change a thing, what a great dad.

More frightening is that I think Katz bought the team for his son for a birthday gift as an upgrade to playing gm mode on NHL 2007. Little Katz is making all the final decisions on all the trades and signings. It's the only thing that makes sense.

More frightening is that I think Katz bought the team for his son for a birthday gift as an upgrade to playing gm mode on NHL 2007. Little Katz is making all the final decisions on all the trades and signings. It's the only thing that makes sense.

In all fairness 2006 was the only year Mac T had the horses and there was also a case of Lightning in a bottle.I also think him being relieved of his job was a mercy killing, they knew they were blowing it up. Mac T is also a very intelligent individual and knows he would have to do things different to ever coach again(eg-Hitchcock and Therrien).

He actually stepped down IIRC. And he as great...one playoff year. But yeah, looks like he is next in line like some pre-arranged marriage and its your ex. Talk about sleeping with one eye open...or is it eyes wide shut?

So the "Old Boys Club" is at it again!! Bring back Scott Howson as a scout. Let's look after each other. Maybe if Loser Lowe put the same amount of thought into his team that he did in making this decision, the team might go somewhere.
Anyway, whats done is done. No wonder the team is sinking. The top heavy management team is weighing and dragging everything else down with it!!